HERE’S A NEW KIND OF SONNET

                to bewilder the ever-present ladybugs
                & turn supermarkets into galaxies
there’s a snowdrop coming up 2/1/09
it’s good to know there’s hope for spring
                darwin never knew
                how silly sexually we’d be
it’s the only flower you might have trouble
getting to; maybe I’m so old I wont be able
to reach any flowers this year, even daisies
will be beyond me: “I’m so close to that queen
anne’s lace but I can’t reach it!” there’s always
the special queen anne’s lace hotline for seniors
                your corkscrew penis wont fit
                my vagina corkscrewing the other way


RAINBOWS & MUSHROOMS

          the weather man’s afraid to say rain
          today’s prediction was “dryish”
          but it was raining, is raining & will be
          raining, the mosquitoes’ve become lethal
          & huge, there’s flooding everywhere, trees
          fall down, we should be building an ark

waiting for max, alyssa & marie, having started way too
early, I’m bored & it isn’t raining, I miss the rain when
it’s not here now that I’ve gotten used to it. melissa
& mike are visiting too & today, after we eat gnocchi
with artichokes, everybody but max adjourns to the NYC.

          here & there across the sunny field
          is a sign of autumn, the water’s deep & cold
          for august, it’s the green corn moon, the grain
          moon, where did I go wrong, almost harvest?
          now it’s wet & cold, where do I go?
          max photographed barn wood on old route 20
               I write to kill time (erik satie)
               eeny meeny miny moe, are you a towhee?


A - avocet
B - blue jay
C - chickadee, cardinal
D - warbler (dendroica)
E - egret
F - finch
G - rose breasted grosbeak
H - blue heron
I - ibis, icterid (blackbird)
J - junco
K - kestrel
L - loon
M - merganser
N - nuthatch
O - owl, osprey
P - pelican
Q - quail
R - red winged blackbird (icterid), robin, roadrunner
S - siskin
T - tanager, turkey
U - underwood typewriter
V - vulture
W - woodpecker (pileated), wren
Y - yellow finch
Z - zinger


COULD YOU BRING THE WINE?

our power
our poor pourer
our impoverishment
went out the hungry door
all sentient beings see the sun
and/or feel it, it weighs a ton

poor on odd days, rich on even
but on the days of the month
that are prime numbers, we get
a little bit the way we’re not

today, poor as church mice
we hie to the Hannaford’s
spend fifty-eight dollars & seventy-three cents
for a week’s worth of food, the eggs
& cigarettes got with a credit card
          soon we’ll be free-vores &
          dumpster-dive & glean


CARDINAL FLOWERS

when in the course of human events
I summon up remembrance of the walk we took
I see nothing, I don’t see, maybe I was blind
or so enraptured by the sights of the creeks
- how many things can you keep in mind
at once? - I said I didn’t see those creeks
but I did except I cant remember anything
now I’ve both lied & lost this sunny memory
so recently stored away in a manger
no crib for a bed, the little lord pathway
- “I wonder if I should drink coffee” -
now I remember less than nothing, what
does that mean? - I feel so attabled I might
be the someone else I threatened my sister with
          being & nothingness


SARDINES

is a yellow, red, orange, black & green
word. I got sardines at the dollar store
where everything except sardines is more
than a dollar, for sixty cents, as they should be
my father used to take sardine sandwiches to work
perhaps therefore, I love sardines. when people
used to talk about the subway, they’d say:
we were packed like sardines which send a message:
small, cheap, tightly packed, anchovies for the poor
or you too can be both colorful & inexpensive as
a really snappy, tiny bright blue convertible
in which you can enjoy the good things about
feeling like a sardine but maybe you’d rather
be a striped bass or be a manatee with me
or a grand whale, forgetful of nothing even
being so big, the ocean’s CEO, you’ll take home
a giant amount of cash when the ocean goes bust
so you can share it even with the downtrodden
sardines who get packed in cans in Thailand
& shipped to the family dollar store for Bernadette


YOU’RE BORING AS A BLUE JAY

day is night is different
from saying night is day
today is like a night, tonight
might seem as long as a day, it’s
raining lions & mastodons, the creek
never floods in july or hasn’t but
it might be turning over a new leaf

next day more rain, all night, rain
it’s beginning to seem too weird
pain at the pump’s been replaced by rain
just to distract you like the inside
of a fallen trumpet flower to a blue jay
              when’s it gonna not rain?
              I cant do without food


BILL GREEN

money’s green as grass
neither grows on trees
but I’ll trade you blades for cash

I need to get bill a snow globe
of the statue of liberty, we’ve got plenty
of tree trunks here, ones with leaves

but no manufactured items except
t.v.s, cars, earth movers & chain saws
sinks, stoves & refrigerators

bill’s got a generator & a snow-blower
I have an electric typewriter
& a huge inflated bee on top of the t.v.
          everybody has more money than me
          the tulips are planted by the water pump


POWDERED VERMONT CHEDDAR & CELTIC SEA SALT


phil and hector went to the creek
I didn’t go cause it’s still too icy
I’ve been burned by my last attempt
today a fifty degree day in February
last night I dreamt anne gave me 100 $100 bills
she had some extras. sun, no, yes, maybe

on their return they walk to the footprints
still in the snow without apparent difficulty
and, guess what? the sun comes out
but not for long; the snow’s shrunk as feebly
as the sun shines. let’s hope tonight’s rain
washes the snow away so walk I can
          the ice got worse, now what?
          yellow & green pie with chemicals


FIRST SNOW HOTLINE

out the somber window that shows
hibernating trees, the water pump, the road
nothing falling from the gray sky yet
the room I’m in’s too clean, the fire’s failed
I’m doing the French fries on top of the stove
the mail’s failed to come, the turkey had no liver
but it may work to write this poem unless
it gets stuck like a car by the creek

the creeks are over the top, be wary
of them, of getting mail from a bank
& a flyer from the family dollar store
in which everything is more than a dollar
except sardines, I don’t even have a bank
account but I saw a rainbow in the woods once
          when the sun got low enough to shine
          under the earth’s cloud caps, I thought
          that’s not a bad deal on dish detergent